Aristotle Quotes

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.

We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

Virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

There must be in prudence also some master virtue.

Prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life.

A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world.

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

Virtue is not always amiable.

He cannot be vertuous that is not rigorous.

If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good.

Integrity means having the courage to do what is right, and what is aligned with your values, no matter the situation.

If then, as we say, good craftsmen look to the mean as they work, and if virtue, like nature, is more accurate and better than any form of art, it will follow that virtue has the quality of hitting the mean. I refer to moral virtue [not intellectual], for this is concerned with emotions and actions, in which one can have excess or deficiency or a due mean.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

Courage is a virtue only so far as it is directed by prudence.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

What is a good person? One who achieves tranquillity by having formed the habit of asking on every occasion, "what is the right thing to do now?"

The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute- he simply speaks and does what is right.